3. Identification

IDENTIFICATION

The anarchist organisation must always see itself as part of the working class. In order to strengthen this identification it must develop and extend its influence in the class. At the same time, the anarchist organisation must recognise as being in ideological advance of the class as a whole. Ideological advance should not be confused with practical advance because, as we have said, workers everywhere learn new forms of struggle and organisation that can benefit other workers. The anarchist revolutionary organisation must always be ready to learn from the class and should be expected to constantly revise its tactics with the unfolding situation. It should always realise it is not infallible and does not have all the answers all the time. It is transformed as the working class is transformed in the revolutionary process.

Because it is part of the class and at the same time a distinctive tendancy within it, the revolutionary organisation faces a contradiction in its relationship to other working people. Of course, if it is not part of the class then, like other groups, it tends towards elitism, vanguardism and divorce from class reality. Theory and practice must be rooted in concrete conditions. There are dangers in these contradictions and the revolutionary anarchist organisation must be aware of this and derive a practice from this awareness. This contradiction cannot be completely removed until the triumph of libertarian communist society.

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